


The Traveler:  An Impractical Origin

by DavidtheWriter (DavidtheTraveler)



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders (Mentioned) - Freeform, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders (Mentioned) - Freeform, Gen, Human Trafficking, Knives, Logic | Logan Sanders (Mentioned) - Freeform, Morally Grey Logic | Logan Sanders, Shooting Guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25368070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavidtheTraveler/pseuds/DavidtheWriter
Summary: In the city of New Gainesburg, masked people with powers are beginning to appear all over town.  Some are proclaimed as heroes, others denounced as villains, and a few defy such binary labeling.  But amongst them all, there is one who is actually trying to understand the greater issue at stake.  Namely, why such a surge in superhuman activity has occurred.  If only he had time to actually figure it out.
Relationships: Morality | Patton Sanders & Original Character(s)
Kudos: 2





	The Traveler:  An Impractical Origin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ResidentAnchor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ResidentAnchor/gifts).



The sound of his alarm dragged Noah from his sleep. It wasn’t fair, he’d just started a most wonderful dream. Which had been interrupted by the blaring of his morning wake up call.

Groaning, he reached over to hit the snooze button, only to receive a sharp pain in his hand.

He pulled it back, glaring at the mouse trap he’d set the night before to actually wake him up. Shaking his head in frustration, he pulled it off and chucked it through the portal to his left, hearing it clunk into his alarm clock on the far side of the room.

Groggily, he pulled himself out of bed and stepped through a new portal to his bathroom to shower and prepare for the day, using a third portal to drop his used PJ’s into his hamper in the laundry room.

After his morning routine was complete and he was dressed for the day, he stepped into his kitchen to make some breakfast and reached over to turn the living room TV on to catch the morning news. He quietly munched on his cereal as he watched a report on The Masked Prince’s latest exploit: stopping another bank robbery with assistance from his new ally, Copy Cat, and a brief bit of help from that strange figure known only as The Vigilant (who the news continued to address as The Vigilante, for some bizarre reason).

“This is getting more and more serious,” he muttered to himself. “I may need to check things out in person if I’m to get a better grip on what’s going on.”

But such serious matters would have to wait. For now, Noah was due at work, and even with his portals he needed to leave right then to be on time.

Noah couldn’t tell you exactly when he started to create portals. He could only remember longing to see the wonders and beauty of the world beyond the tiny corner of Texas his family lived in, and that longing had brought about the emergence of his power.

And what a power it was. At first, his portals could only reach a few feet away, just enough to get him from one side of his room to the other. But in time that distance increased, first to the other side of his house, then the other side of school, then the town, then the state. By the time he graduated high school, he could portal himself to anywhere on the planet.

But that wasn’t the only surprise the development of his abilities produced.

After a long day of work at his data entry job, Noah portaled himself back home for a well-deserved rest. At least, it would be restful for his body. His mind, however, was about to take a field trip of its own.

In the latter years of his time in school, Noah had started to sense things beyond what should be possible for a non-telepath. Things like people’s emotions, basic thoughts, even just their residual mental energies. At first, Noah wasn’t sure what was going on. He knew he hadn’t developed any new mental abilities. At least, he thought he did.

But now he understood just how far he could travel, and also to what incredible unexplored places he could go.

After getting himself an early dinner, he settled himself in his chair and let his body fall asleep, allowing his mind to transcend to the astral plane.

Yes, there was nowhere Noah couldn’t travel to. Using his portals to travel the Earth had of course been fun. But even more incredible was observing the hidden realms of the mind. Here, he could see all of the minds around him in this city. All of their thoughts, feelings, desires, even a small glimmer of their true living energy was there for him to observe and understand.

Which was exactly what he wanted to do.

Because he wanted to understand what was going on in New Gainesburg. His power to traverse the astral plane had shown him that people with powers, like himself, had a slightly different life energy than those without. And while that in and of itself was fascinating, what was even more startling was that New Gainesburg had a greater concentration of superhuman activity than any other city on the planet.

So the real question was why? Why was New Gainesburg so important? What could possibly be going on to explain this surge in activity?

Noah wasn’t sure, but he knew one thing for certain. If something big was about to happen, he wanted to be there to do as much as he could to understand it, and to protect innocent people from being hurt. He had been given these powers for a reason, and he was going to be sure to live up to that responsibility.

A flurry of new action suddenly grabbed his attention. It was the Masked Prince, moving through downtown towards the business district. He was on patrol again, but Noah didn’t see much that would require his assistance.

But another burst of activity pulled his mind to the far side of town. Copy Cat was also about, and he’d already pulled out two duplicates. It looked as if he was investigating something in the storage complex near the college area.

Noah scanned ahead, towards the less used parts of the complex, and what he saw nearly shocked him out of his projection.

A group of armed men were herding several bound and gagged teenage girls out of one of the larger storage units into the back of an old moving truck.

_Traffickers._

Noah felt his blood boiling, and a quick check told him that Copy Cat’s was doing the same. But there were almost a dozen men, each heavily armed. He’d never seen Copy Cat pull up more than a handful of duplicates. And even if he could bring up a dozen or so, he always fought unarmed.

Checking again, the Masked Prince was nowhere near that part of town, and even if he started heading in that direction he wouldn’t make it in time. And there was no sign of The Vigilant, who had managed to evade Noah’s attempts to trace his movements save for when he actually made an official appearance.

There was also no sign of that Zero Gravity character, but Noah had seen enough of him to know he was not one to be trusted. His desire for knowledge and understanding of individuals with powers and how they worked seemed to have completely overwhelmed any qualms he might have had about how he treated those individuals.

There was also the fact that he hadn’t been able to actually find him through Astral Projection alone. It was only his effects on others’ minds that allowed Noah to track him when he was active, which led him to believe he must possess some strong mental powers of his own. Luckily he hadn’t done anything particularly untoward lately, but he was still one to keep a close eye on.

In any case, this meant that, as far as Noah could tell, Copy Cat was going into this alone. And that was not good.

There was only one thing to do.

Noah pulled himself back to his body and portaled himself to his closet. He’d been considering doing this for a while, and he’d even bought the necessary gear to do so. But he’d never managed to completely convince himself to try it.

Until now.

Noah checked himself over in the mirror, adjusting his new getup. He’d gone for a simple navy blue polo and dark blue jeans for the inner layer. But he’d also managed to get ahold of a long brown trench coat, a large pair of brown work gloves, some work boots, and a pair of old-fashioned aviator goggles. And to finish it off, he tied a simple grey scarf around his neck.

It didn’t look quite as good as it had in his head, but it would suffice for tonight. Taking one last look at himself and mentally psyching himself up for it, he opened a new portal and stepped through into the alley behind where Copy Cat and his copies were currently hiding.

“Hello there,” he greeted, suppressing his chuckle as the three identical looking figures jumped and turned to look at him.

“Who are you?” the nearest asked, looking wary. Noah caught a flash of a memory passing through each of their minds. An image of a figure in a lab coat and mask, with a fanny pack round his waist and a golden glow in his eyes, accompanied by a sharp pain as his mind entered theirs.

“I’m not Zero Gravity, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he replied softly, trying to broadcast his sincerity to them astrally. Whether or not it worked, they seemed to calm down, though there was still a wariness to their stances.

“So then who are you?” the one who’d been furthest away repeated as he moved back toward him. “And what are you doing here?”

Noah struck a simple pose. “You can call me The Traveler. And I’m here to help. I saw you were going after those traffickers, and I figured you could use a partner. Your regular companion is off on the other side of town, and no offence, but you’re not exactly a very strong fighter, even with your duplicates.

“The way I see it you could use someone to take on and distract those thugs while you guys get those girls out of here and to safety. And who better to help than someone who can literally travel anywhere instantly?”

He punctuated this last bit by opening up a small portal to the side and reaching through to tap what appeared to be the lead Copy Cat on the shoulder. He started and turned around to look, and the three duplicates’ eyes lit up at the sight of his hand reaching out through the second portal.

“So, what do you say? Can I help you out?”

The three glanced between themselves as Noah pulled his hand back to close the portal. They seemed to be communicating telepathically, but Noah knew better than that. They were probably just all very good at reading their own facial expressions. After a few moments, they all started nodding at each other before looking up at him to address him.

“To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what we were going to do,” the middle one started, relief apparent on his face. “I just felt the girls’ fear and pain and…I just couldn’t let them get hurt, I had to do something. I wasn’t really sure how. But with you, I think I have an idea.”

Noah grinned. “Let’s hear it.”

***********************

Fifteen minutes later, The Traveler was poised on the top of the nearest building to where the action was. Below him, he could see the armed men standing around the truck. The captive girls were almost fully moved into the truck now, the last one being dragged in as he observed. Dipping out for a moment to check the astral plane, he saw the now six copies of his new…

Friend? Ally for sure, but he’d like to think friend. And he could see that the Copy Cats were thinking the same thing.

But anyway.

He could see the six Copy Cats were all now in position, ready to move in and get the girls out and to the nearest police station via portal once the distraction had worked. He dipped back in and moved up onto the corner of the ledge.

“Hey, jerk wads!”

The men looked up, and their gazes fell on him. He could see most were surprised, but a few seemed mildly amused. _I must not be the first Super they’ve ever met_ , he thought. But there was no time for that. He was on.

“I’d stop what you’re doing and step away from the truck if I were you.”

“Or what?” one of the ones who’d looked amused called back. “You gonna try and stop us?”

“Yes, actually,” The Traveler replied, putting on a faint air of boredom and haughtiness to better play the role. “I’d really rather not have to take you all down the hard way.”

The one who’d spoken cackled out a laugh. The others hesitantly did the same.

“You ain’t the first would-be hero I’ve taken down kid. So why don’t you do the smart thing and run along. I don’t care what kind of freak powers you’ve got, you’re no match for us.”

The Traveler smirked.

“Very well then. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He stepped off, and immediately fell toward the ground. There was a single strangled gasp from one of the men in shock. Probably a younger fellow. The others seemed eager to see him splat on the ground, however.

Too bad he’d have to disappoint them.

Just before impact, he pulled open a portal on the ground and twisted himself around to fly through head first. He came out the other side right behind the dude who’d yelled back, pushing him forward into another portal, which opened to slam him into another guy in the line.

The others were starting to freak out and began trying to fire at him. Too bad his new series of portals were sending all their bullets harmlessly into an abandoned dumpster about a block away. A few stopped firing and tried to find a way around his portal shield, but any attempts to get around them sent them falling through additional portals into their compatriots.

It was amidst this chaos that The Traveler opened up the portals to let the Copy Cats get into the truck. He concentrated on what he’d seen when he surveilled it earlier and opened them accordingly. The lack of any noise from inside the truck told him the Copy Cats had grabbed the dude that was in there with the girls and silenced him.

He tried concentrating again, but the firing of the bullets at him was hard to ignore. In order to pull up a portal to get the girls into the nearest police station he needed more time to concentrate. But that wasn’t possible with these thugs still trying to do him in.

Looking carefully around his portal shields, he was able to make out where the men were now. Thinking quickly, he pulled up a new series of portals beneath them, the other end dropping them into one of the still-locked storage units nearby. That would probably be enough to hold them for a bit. With them dealt with for now, he ran inside to check on the Copy Cats and the girls.

But he stopped just outside.

The lead thug was inside the truck, holding one of the Copy Cats by his hair, a knife pressed to his neck. The other five were with the unconscious other thug and the girls, some of them with their gags and bindings removed. None of them were moving in fear, and The Traveler didn’t have to guess why.

“Figured if I got one then the others would stop. I wonder what would happen if I killed the original. You wanna find out, or you wanna back off and leave me to my business?”

The Traveler made to move forward, but the thug pressed his knife harder into Copy Cat’s throat. It didn’t draw blood, but a red mark was beginning to appear.

The Traveler slumped slightly. There was only one way to fix this.

The others who were present weren’t quite sure what had happened. One moment, the original Copy Cat was being threatened by the lead thug while The Traveler stared him down. The next, all three seemed to sink into the ground (or floor, in the case of the thug and Copy Cat).

The Traveler twisted around in midair, looking for the thug and Copy Cat. He hadn’t been concentrating very hard, so he wasn’t sure where they’d popped out, only that they were somewhere up in the sky with him. Then, in the darkness, he saw them.

Just barely illuminated by the moonlight, he could make them out a few dozen yards away. He carefully maneuvered his fall toward them. As he got closer, he could see the two struggling with each other, the knife still in the thug’s hand. Aiming carefully, he shot at them, and connected.

The thug was sent flying off, and Copy Cat clung to him as they continued to fall. Then there was a flash and a brief tumult in his stomach as they zoomed through the new portal to shoot them back up, the pull of gravity now slowing them down instead. After a few moments, they were slowed down enough for him to open another, and the two jumped out to land safely on their feet next to the truck.

The girls, all now ungagged and unbound, shouted out in surprise at their appearance. But that fear turned to joy at seeing their rescuers returned safely. They weren’t the only ones, as the duplicates rushed forward to grab their fellow, and with a flash they all disappeared into him, leaving only the original with a look of giddy joy still plastered on his face at the reunion.

“Are you okay?” Noah asked, looking relieved but still concerned at his new friend.

“Yeah, I am. That was just…whoa,” he panted out.

“Yeah, sorry about that. But it was the only thing I could think of to get you out of that.”

“Thanks, but…”

He hesitated before continuing. “But what about that guy? I mean, I know he’s a big meanie, but…but he doesn’t deserve to die.”

“Don’t worry, I’m on it,” he replied, and he dipped back out, much to his new friend’s surprise.

Concentrating, he could see where the guy was, and he just managed to get a portal under him to shoot him back up. One more quick scan showed him the other thugs were still contained where he’d put them. Which meant all he needed was one last calculation and then he’d be ready to finish this.

He dipped back in and stood up again, startling his fully freaked-out friend.

“What the hey was that?!”

“Sorry, I had to dip into the astral plane to find him and keep him from hitting the ground. Anyway, he should be fine. Now, we need to get you ladies to safety.”

He pulled Copy Cat into the truck with the girls before pulling up the portal to take them to the police station. The officers in the lobby on the other side where quite surprised to see the sudden portal open up, but quickly went into action when they saw the girls and unconscious thug the strange masked figures were leading through it. A quick explanation was enough to get them to focus on getting the girls home, and after the last one was seen to and the trafficker put away for the night, the two heroes gave the address of the other traffickers’ truck and stepped back through.

“Alright, one last thing. You might want to step out for this bit.”

Copy Cat did as asked as The Traveler pulled open two final portals. They watched as the thugs fell out of one and began to pick themselves up, before the leader suddenly fell out of the other onto them, knocking them all back down.

“Sorry for the rough landing, but I did warn you. Maybe a little time out will make you rethink this trafficking business.”

And with that he walked out, locking them inside to be picked up by the police.

“That was awesome!” Copy Cat was almost bouncing on his heels in glee. “You were amazing!”

“Well, I couldn’t have done it without your help, my friend.”

Copy Cat beamed at that.

“Anyway, I best be heading off. And you should probably do the same. It’d probably be a good idea to not be here when the police show up.”

Copy Cat nodded, but then hesitated before speaking up.

“You think maybe we could do this again sometime?”

The Traveler smiled.

“I’d like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering, here is a more concise OC Profile:
> 
> **Noah Brumsfeld**
> 
> Age: 29  
> Pronouns: He/Him  
> Hero Name: The Traveler  
> Powers: Portal Creation, Astral Projection  
> Orientation: Asexual Biromantic  
> Motivations: Wants to know what's going on, but doesn't want to hurt people to figure it out; Also wants to help protect innocent people caught in the growing action  
> Alignment: Good, Oscillating between Lawful and Neutral  
> Costume: Old-fashioned Aviator Goggles, Brown Trench Coat, Grey Scarf, Old-style Brown Work Gloves, Brown Work Boots, Navy Blue Polo Shirt, Dark Blue Jeans
> 
> *****
> 
> Inspired by [_Impractical: The Superhero AU to "A Lesson in Practicality"_](https://impractical-au.tumblr.com/) by [ResidentAnchor](https://residentanchor.tumblr.com/).
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed this. I'm hoping to add in more as the official story progresses. This particular part takes place some point after the current state of things in the official Canon, so it might be a while before I add a second part. But don't worry, I'll let you know when it's coming.
> 
> In any case, thank you all for reading. Feel free to leave a kudo or comment, or even come over and talk to me on [Tumblr](https://davidthetraveler.tumblr.com).


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